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Kenneth Williams lived his dream By Bill Miller Oct 30, 2022 12:45 AM A A As the 1917 season began, Ken Williams was about to turn 28 and had to wonder if his baseball career was over. Major League Baseball had been his dream ever since he finished the eighth grade and picked up a bat with the hometown Grants Pass team. Even as a teenager, few could hit a baseball harder and farther. In 1911, when he was 21, it seemed his time had come when he signed a contract with the Boston Red Sox. But it didn’t pan out, and he spent the next few years in a round robin tour of the minor leagues as his contract was sold to one baseball team after another. Then, the Cincinnati Reds of the National League bought his contract in 1915. Perhaps it was the heat and humidity, or simply being homesick, but it was a disastrous season, the worst Ken had ever played. Ten games into the 1916 season, he was sold back to the minors. By 1917, Ken was a Portland Beaver and nursing an injured knee. No one expected much, but Ken was never a quitter. He finished the season with a .313 average and led the league with 24 home runs. The St. Louis Browns of the American League (later the Baltimore Orioles) were interested and bought Ken’s contract. What should have been a happy baseball time for him wasn’t. By the time the 1918 season began, he had received his Army draft notice. Before reporting for induction, in two official appearances Ken walked and grounded out yet still managed to knock in a run for the team. Until he was discharged in mid December 1918, he batted over .500 while playing ball for his Army post in St. Louis. His stay in St. Louis for the next few years would be much more comfortable than those lonely days in Cincinnati. Back home in Grants Pass, he had met and fallen in love with a woman who worked as a clerk at the Southern Pacific station. Ethel Maye Wilkerson and Ken Williams were married in St. Louis June 18, 1919. For over half of the 1919 season, Ken was injured and did not play. An early strained leg ligament kept him on the bench for over three months and, as the season was about to close, a baseball “bumped” his hand and took him out of the lineup for the rest of the season. That wild pitch or, perhaps retaliation for Ken’s previous home run, came from future Washington Senators Hall of Fame pitcher Walter Johnson. It didn’t “bump,” but broke one of Ken’s fingers. Steadily, Ken’s statistics improved. In 1922, when he began setting records, national baseball fans finally took notice. Ken set the American League record by hammering three home runs in a single game April 22. One actually left the stadium and landed on a city street. Babe Ruth had been suspended for the first six weeks of that season and didn’t notch his first home run until Ken Williams had already hit 10. Ken set another record Aug. 2, as the first man in the modern era of baseball to hit two home runs in the same inning. He told a reporter he expected to hit 40 by the end of the season. Ken fell one short, although he set the American League record at 39. Ruth had 35, and Rogers Hornsby smashed 42 in the National League. That was the same year he also established the 30-30 Club — stealing over 30 bases and hitting over 30 home runs in the same year. Ken had 37 steals to go with his 39 home runs. The record wasn’t matched until Willie Mays accomplished it in 1956 with 40 steals and 36 homers. After 14 seasons, with his dream accomplished, Ken retired with a lifetime batting average of .313, 196 home runs, 154 stolen bases and 1,552 hits. Before his death in 1959, Ken was named to the all-time St. Louis Browns All-Star Team. He is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Writer Bill Miller is the author of five books, including “History Snoopin’” — a collection of his previous columns. Reach him at [email protected].